Ott pleaded guilty in July to conspiring to distribute fentanyl in Chambersburg between October 2015 and his arrest in May 2017.

"Fentanyl has been a significant contributor to overdose deaths in our community since 2016. Frankly, the arrest and continued incarceration of Nathan Ott has saved many lives in this community," Franklin County District Attorney Matt Fogal said Thursday.

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid analgesic that is similar to morphine and is 50-100 times more potent than heroin.

The Franklin County District Attorney's Office named the investigation into Ott "Operation Press Your Luck," according to a news release announcing his arrest last year.

According to the DOJ, Ott obtained several kilograms of fentanyl, which he pressed into pill form and distributed. When the manual pill press Ott began with was unable to keep up with the demand, he purchased a motorized press capable of making 5,000 pills an hour.

Police found about 18,000 fentanyl pills and related materials when executing a search warrant at a storage unit in Hamilton Township, according to the county DA's office. With a single fentanyl pill selling for $35, the seizure eliminated about $600,000 worth of the drug from the county.

The DOJ said Ott bought the ingredients to manufacture the pills on the internet through the dark web, and distributed them through this part of the internet starting in March of 2017. He also gave them to his co-conspirators who distributed the drugs to others.

Nathan Ott is accused of manufacturing and delivering fentaynl around Chambersburg. These items were seized during the investigation.(Photo11: Franklin County District Attorney's Office)

The judge ordered Ott to forfeit $164,010 in cash and 19.7128804 in Bitcoin (with a current value of about $120,000).

Six other people were charged in the case, and they are awaiting trial, the DOJ said.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Franklin County District Attorney’s Office, the Franklin County Drug Task Force and the Chambersburg and the Shippensburg Police Departments. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daryl F. Bloom prosecuted the case.

This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime.

This case also was part of a district-wide initiative to combat use and distribution of heroin. Led by the United States Attorney’s Office, the Heroin Initiative targets heroin traffickers operating in the middle district of Pennsylvania, and is part of a coordinated effort among federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who commit heroin-related offenses.